Daily Mirror Breaking News


The Daily Mirror Online is the gold standard for online news in Sri Lanka or, more accurately, the bronze standard in an age where everyone else is using sticks and voodoo. The Daily Mirror Online, however, is not actually good. Today, for example, they ran ‘Addicts behind slayings’, referring to the spate of beggar killings in Colombo. This conclusion, however, is sourced to exactly one beggar outside Town Hall, thus hardly a conclusion. In another article they said “In a shocking disclosure, which amounts to a massacre of the innocents, illegal abortion centers… are alleged to be carrying out more than 1,000 abortions daily.” On the Ban Ki-moon issue as well, they have mixed editorializing with news (badly) and to poor effect.

That said, I think the Daily Mirror online is the most innovative and hard-working news website out there. We’ve been trying to do daily news on www.thesundayleader.lk and we rely on the Daily Mirror for leads, of which they get aplenty. They’re way ahead on breaking news so we’re more trying to put the news together. At this point I hope I’m criticizing them as a colleague and a reader, not a shit-flinging blogger monkey.

The Daily Mirror is good, but it’s not great, and it could be. They’ve got the breaking news down, now they just need to fix it.

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5 Comments »

Dilan
2010-07-14 20:55:02

Not to mention the horrible copy editing. Only yesterday I saw another (Island inspired) “pubic warned” article. Along with several other unprofessional articles every day.

 
2010-07-15 07:55:03

In a slightly different note, Indi, what happened to Leader Kottu Supplement? I can’t seem to find it anymore.

 
mahinda
2010-07-15 08:40:40

I like http://www.dailymirror.lk
good news. regularly updated.
It’s readership also seems to be quite intelligent, based on the comments and the way comments are dealt with (using the little “thumbs up” and thumbs down” icons)

billy
2010-07-22 10:50:28

its a heaven for anti sri lankan diaspora, pro lankan and pro govt comments hardly get published

 
 
Arunan
2010-07-19 01:06:59

Found this practice of DM to be extremely careless and disturbing. They did this for a while.

Daily Mirror erroneously (or purposefully!) used to put a cropped pic of handcuffs from journalist Tissa being hand cuffed and taken away in any “arrested” related news pix., such as the following: (although the web links seem to be now broken). Even if the news item didn’t have anything to do with J.S. Tissa

http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=43443

“99 persons were arrested on suspicion
The police arrested 99 persons on Sunday night, both male and female on suspicion in connection with the recent LTTE suicide bomb blast in Akuressa which claimed 15 lives”

 
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